1 Jan y 1807

Facienda

Outline

The other course is by testification and examination the epistolary mode: the shape in which the testimony is extracted ex adverso being the same as that in which it is extracted from the defendant by the Plff at the opening /commencement/ of the cause by means of a /an English/ Bill in Equity.

The Plff (not as under English Equity with the benefit of the mendacity - licence, but) under the sanction of an oath or what is equivalent - addresses himself in person to the Judge, delivers his statement vivâ voce, submitting himself thereupon to be examined /in like manner ex adverso/ by the Judge, and at the same time submitting to the Judge the interrogations which by means of his letter of demand he proposes to administer to the defendant: the Judge, after making thereon such amendments as he thinks fit, gives his final binding form to the letter, authenticating it by his official signature; stating the time within which answer is to be made and under what penal consequences in case of failure.

The great use of this mode of collecting testimony, is - that, [...?] on by property or any other bond of attachment the Judge of the plaintiff's forum has any sufficient hold upon the Defendant intervenes for the purpose of the cause may be carried on, not only although the defendant's abode /residence/ for the time be at any length of distance from that of the Plff within the dominions of the same sovereign, but even although it at any length of distance within the dominion of any foreign and even hostile state. Go take the examination of any person in a judicial way vivâ voce in the dominions of a foreign state requires that sort of assistance from the judicial authority of the foreign state that sort of assistance (that /such a/ sort of intercourse between the one state and that of the other) which without great difficulty, if at all, will not in general be obtainable.